Until last month, this group of 9,000 Emperor penguins had never seen a human being before. And no human knew about their existence either — until a satellite picked up images of their poop from space. That’s right. These penguins are so populous that their waste is visible from orbit. Though they were discovered in 2009, humans were not able to visit them in person until December 2012.

Click on the IO9 link above for more — and pictures that make you go “SQUEEEEE!”

Oh — and if this doesn’t rate as a true Balloon Juice open thread, I don’t know what does.

You were posting about penguin shit so thick it could be seen from space, and then you say that pictures at think “will make you go squeeeee!”
What exactly is it about penguin shit that makes you go squee?

@burnspbesq: I wonder if Obama is playing chess and the GOP tiddly-winks here. If the administration comes out in favor of the coin or the 14th amendment at this point it gives the GOP a twofer
1. the echo chamber can bellow about the socialist destroying the constitution and
2. the GOP knows there is an out on the debt limit so they have to do nothing and the ‘out’ will be owned by Obama.

Rather Obama is saying this a problem created by Congress and it will have to be fixed by Congress. He will not negotiate over the terms of lifting the debt limit or try to develop further workarounds. The GOP has a choice raise the limit or default. If there is a default it will be on the GOP. Let them stew about that for the next couple of weeks.

The day before the government runs out of tricks to pay the bills, Obama holds a press conference and says tommorrow at the end of business the US will default unless Congress acts. It then is squarely on the GOP.

Needless to say the next day the markets will tank and the bankers and the corporate CEOs will be all over the GOP to raise the limit.

If the GOP still fails to act, then Obama can announce that he will not stand by and let the Congress destroy the global economy and he will order Treasury to continue paying the bills and ignore the debt limit. Whatever action he takes may be of questionable constitutionality but the Constitution is not a sucide pact so he will act.

The GOP can either accept the action or file a law suit to stop the action. The courts do not like to get into these separation of powers fights and any judge that issued an injunction might as well move to Siberia. The GOP could also file articles of impeachment but in the end that didn’t work out so well with Clinton. Either way it would be obvious to everyone but the faux news viewers that destroying Obama is more important than doing the county’s business.

@burnspbesq: You’re wrong on two counts. It’s not a recent development, it has been their position since the last debt ceiling fiasco. And if their lawyers say the law can’t be used that way should the administration just go looking for a lawyer who will say it’s okay? We’ve seen that before.

See how super and actual it is! Such pretty colors, not at all designed to make the image look fabulous and super awesome, thereby increasing interest, awe-struckness, and beneficial public relations side effects!

No shit. That’s a rational strategy if you’ve got the cojones to play it all the way out. However, as Dr. Krugman has pointed out more than once recently, if you want to doubt Obama’s cojones, there is plenty of evidence that supports that view.

@Gin & Tonic:
The problem is that the shit normally associated with Republicans comes from a much less exotic animal. If it had been a herd of bulls in some obscure place whose shit could be seen from space, the connection would be much more obvious.

Ah look at the poor dear who, looking in a mirror, sees his makeup smeared face and recognises a vast unimportance. Projection is a bitter drug.

Apparenly one of the benefits of tracking the tuxedoed ones from space is a about a 40% reduction in mortality over banding, plus the whole coverage thing. Undoubtedly need to do individual studies for other reasons, but has it’s niche, plus the whole poo-space-tracker tee-shirt appeal.

@Mnemosyne:
I think there’s also a fair amount of the Green Lantern theory of politics going on. If only Obama were tougher and had more willpower, he could get everything he (actually the person criticizing him) wants without having to give anything substantive in return. That’s not how real-world negotiations work, especially when the people you’re negotiating with really are willing to shoot the hostage.

As happens so often, here’s The Guardian understanding America better than most Americans, listing 10 questions Oprah will ask Lance tomorrow in his “tell all something that he hopes is enough” interview. Like “Would you like to talk for quite a long time about what Being An American means to you?”

@jeffreyw: Whenever I say I think you should put together a cookbook you tell me that you’re not organized (or something like that).

But I wonder if you have considered the idea of putting some Balloon Juice unemployed or underemployed designer and/or editor to work putting together a cookbook. If you don’t have the money or inclination to do that, maybe it could be a collective project for Balloon Juice.

People here could donate some seed money to pay for editing and design and then maybe you could split the proceeds from the beautiful printed cookbook with a rescue organization or we could help fund a food bank, or whatever.

Just thinking out loud. Maybe I need to feel like everything’s not hopeless today.

Sorry to highjack the thread a little bit (or attempt to do so, I suppose), but is anyone else absolutely tired of encountering Kardashian-related stories every-damn-where? Every stinkin’ time I log onto the internet, there’s another story about the diets, clothing choices, sex lives, toenail polish choices, etc. of a Kardashian. I can’t name a Kanye West song to save my life (I’m not suggesting that’s some virtue on my part, just a reality). But I at least know why he’s famous. Nonetheless, I wish he and Kim would just go away. Go buy a south sea island, employ a hundred servants, install a golden toilet, buy a fleet of Bentley’s, and leave us alone already!

@MikeJ: I don’t follow them but the mom’s name is Chris, then the daughters names are Cloe, Kim, and Courtney. Don’t ask me how I know. There’s a son and 2 daughters with Jenner, but I don’t know their names.

@cathyx: The father was Robert Kardashian, one of O.J. Simpson’s lawyers (as I’m sure everyone probably knows). It just seems weird to me that this woman (Kim) is primarily known for her gravity-defying keister (and, now, multiple sex tapes).

My homepage is MSN.com. I didn’t know I could make BJ my homepage. I have to become more computer-literate it would appear.

@jp7505a: Yes, I’d like to see them take Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt (aptly-named fellow), and 97% of the other reality-show celebs, too.

I have read that there has been a mix of satellite and flyover pictures on Google, with the satellite pictures gradually being replaced by the more accurate flyover. But you can look at satellite imagery online that has remarkable resolution.

@Yutsano: Only non-blood uncle I’d crawl over glass to be be with in the circs (and I’ve blood ones I’d avoid) I won’t be able to visit for similar reasons. Consider yourself accompanied in the trying hard not to. The scars they are imposing on families ripple outwards.

@Gex: Well, shit. Hopefully it’s 2 steps forward, 1 back, and not the other way around.

I’m not sure I quite understand the implications of what you’ve said. She hasn’t been well enough to take antibiotics, but now she is? Do the antibiotics go through the port, so she can’t take the antibiotics when it’s infected? Or she is able to take the antibiotics, and the infection is a separate problem?

I suppose I don’t really need to understand, but one of those scenarios seems better than the other, and I’m hoping that’s what’s going on.

@WaterGirl: The whole thing is just such a mess. Be forewarned, I can blurt out a lot of this at the slightest prompt.

The chemo wrecked her immune system, so opportunistic diseases set in. Digestive tract stuff, skin stuff, mucusitis. For most of those things she was getting her anti-[biotic/viral/fungal] through the port. But the digestive tract stuff needs to be taken orally. The mouth wounds were preventing her from safely swallowing so she hasn’t been able to take those for the last 9 days.

On the plus side, we had been steadily improving almost every day for 3-4 days prior to this. And there were still some good signs.

@Maude: So much of it is that she is definitely, noticeably worse off today. And having been dealing with cancer for months, getting into this, the idea of getting out of this and still having more cancer to deal with is tough. I have been resting more, and that is sound advice. I just think I have to let myself have these moments where I get to feel the feelings I have to set aside the rest of the time to get this done.

@Gex: You said: So much of it is that she is definitely, noticeably worse off today.

I think that would have to be the hardest part. Things start rolling along (comparatively speaking), you get your hopes up, thinking okay, we’ve made it over this hurdle, we can do this, one step at a time, and then bam! Along comes a setback.

Sometimes you have to just sit there and cry on the sidewalk (metaphorically speaking) before you can pick yourself up and try again. If you never give in to that part, you can’t keep on going when you need to.